I\u2019m curious how you found out you could sing, how you developed your voice and what singing means to you? VladimirS
I found out I could sing while I was doing experimental theatre in 1989 \u2013 it was a cultural crossover between Ukraine and the UK. My biggest fear was singing in public and I wanted to do something I was afraid of, so I turned a Rimbaud poem into what I imagined was a blues song. And I loved it. Afterwards, I met this producer, William Orbit \u2013 I was 19 and he was 37 \u2013 through one of the women in the play whose husband was the manager of the Pogues. William decided: \u201cShe can sing. I will make a star of her.\u201d He hooked me up with a wonderful singing teacher. But I probably will never see myself as a singer. Even last week I was like: \u201cOh yeah, I guess I am a musician, that\u2019s ended up being what I do.\u201d I still can\u2019t quite get my head around that.<\/p>\n
When making a new song up, do you have a job to do, or are you inspired? And in which order do the songs come, regarding melody, chords, words? gin007
I get inspired and that\u2019s why I write. I could be walking in nature or having a conversation and it\u2019ll spark something in my head and I\u2019ll make notes. Then I\u2019ll go to the piano or guitar and often if I\u2019ve got something percolating, that will find its way into the chords. So, melody, words and chords often come together at once. Then I do the work, which is the filling it in. The easy part is the la la la, here\u2019s the idea, here\u2019s the shape, here\u2019s the form, and then it\u2019s like: this all came unconsciously, how do I write to that standard consciously? That can be really, really challenging. It can make your skin crawl because it\u2019s hard to write a good song.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Could you tell us something about your earliest musical memory? AlfBlanch
One of my earliest musical memories is my brother playing Oh! You Pretty Things by David Bowie. I was probably about nine and we lived in this two-up, two-down in Norwich. Anything he played was fucking loud. Mostly it was raging punk rock, but this one morning that track woke me up \u2013 he must have been up all night \u2013 and I heard something that made me feel excited for life. I was like: \u201cWow, what the hell is that? I wanna find that.\u201d<\/p>\n
How big an influence on you musically was John Martyn and did you ever meet him? Guardianlover
He was a huge influence. And then I met him and he wasn\u2019t that into me. I don\u2019t even know if I really spoke to him, but he didn\u2019t want me covering his songs, I don\u2019t think. It didn\u2019t put me off \u2013 I still love his music.<\/p>\n
I remember reading an article about you being on the London Underground and the whole carriage singing one of your songs when they saw you. Which song was it and did you join in? frattie
It was She Cries Your Name. And I didn\u2019t join in. It was probably 1997 or 1998, I think I\u2019d either come on the train after finishing my own gig or I\u2019d supported someone. I can\u2019t remember the exact details, but I was with my friend and it was really sweet \u2013 I was really chuffed and happy.<\/p>\n
\u2018My biggest fear was singing in public\u2019 \u2026 Orton at home circa 1995. Photograph: Martin Godwin\/The Guardian<\/p>\n
Your collaboration with the Chemical Brothers, Where Do I Begin, is for me the song that perfectly sums up the chaos of the mid-90s. A mix of confusion, hedonism and thoughts turning to the next big night out. Was that a reflection of your life at that time? CraigThePaig
Yes. Definitely. I mean, you know, on the whole, it\u2019s hard to remember \u2026 but what I do remember was really fun.<\/p>\n
More than a decade ago, I read that you didn\u2019t have entirely positive feelings about 1999\u2019s Central Reservation, and that you had been somewhat pressured into the overall sound of it. In 2026, how do you feel about the album, which I think is one of the best albums of its time? PaulDavisTheFirst
I had conflicting feelings because when I made [1996 album] Trailer Park it was very organic in terms of working with Andrew Weatherall and picking my own band. Then around the time [of Central Reservation] it was like: \u201cOh, she likes to be remixed. Let\u2019s get her remixed up the wazoo and that\u2019ll make this work and make it successful.\u201d There were certain things that didn\u2019t feel like they were coming from me and at times I was a little bit uncomfortable. I did have a thing with Central Reservation where I was like: \u201cI want to make this better, and this better.\u201d But what happens now is I sing these songs live and I am still reimagining them.<\/p>\n
Orton and Nick Cave perform at the Theatre at Ace Hotel in Los Angeles in 2015. Photograph: Kevin Winter\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Can you still make a wage, a yearly living, from original music being outside the \u201cmainstream\u201d? barrycreed
It is not easy. I think the lucky break is if you can make music for TV or films. That didn\u2019t happen for me and I have had to support a family. There\u2019s always the debate \u2013 should I just get a real job? \u2013 but at a certain point it was like, well, there\u2019s no going back because I\u2019m not good at anything. I\u2019m useless at everything, but I can make music so I\u2019ll just keep doing that and hope for the best. And I love what I do \u2013 it started to become its own kind of fuel in a way.<\/p>\n
Are you concerned about AI having a negative impact on music? lotusblue
Yes. It\u2019s pretty depressing. I still live in the hope that the real deal is the real deal and that only humans can make art the way humans can. And I think that\u2019s really important, spiritually and emotionally and energetically. I sound really hippy, I don\u2019t care. If you make music you feel maybe it can have an energetic influence in a powerful, positive way and I just can\u2019t see that AI is going to have any beneficial influence on humans.<\/p>\n
On the West Holts stage at Glastonbury in 2023. Photograph: Jonny Weeks\/The Guardian<\/p>\n
What happened to your Lost Leaves record label idea? You started it when you released a long-lost (and great) cover of Tim Buckley\u2019s I Never Asked to Be Your Mountain as a platform for publishing more unreleased tracks, but I haven\u2019t heard about anything that followed. Should we expect more lost gems like this? Coopertapes
I started making new music and I was like: \u201cI\u2019m not looking back, I\u2019m looking forward.\u201d I do still have these \u201clost gems\u201d, but the new music I\u2019m making is much more exciting to me. At some point I probably will explore that again.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve always been hooked on the acoustics of Feel to Believe [from Central Reservation], and how your voice seems to be fighting against the limits of the recording. What is going on here and did you immediately know that was how it had to sound (rather than polishing it up)? RoryDollard I discovered your music at a very difficult time. Hearing your voice, the music, I suddenly felt that everything was going to be fine. What music do you listen to when troubled? FlowerBlue Beth Orton\u2019s new album, The Ground Above, is released 26 June on Partisan Records<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I\u2019m curious how you found out you could sing, how you developed your voice and what singing means…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":583808,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[6491,96,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-583807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=583807"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583807\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/583808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=583807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=583807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=583807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
It\u2019s a really sweet story. I was a huge fan of David Roback from Mazzy Star and I approached him and asked: \u201cWill you produce me, will you play on my record?\u201d I flew out to Oslo to meet him and mainly the session was drinking a lot of red wine and watching an Elizabeth Cotten<\/a> documentary \u2013 I was very shy about my guitar playing and he just wanted to encourage me. Finally, he put on a microphone and I played Feel to Believe as what I thought was a demo for him. And then he refused to play on it or do more. He was like, my production is to teach you that you don\u2019t need to collaborate with anyone else. To this day, if I could capture live what he captured, I would.<\/p>\n
Often when I feel very blue, I can\u2019t bear to listen to music because it hurts too much. I get very affected by words and music. So my own music has become a source of [comfort]. In the last few years, it\u2019s been quite hard for me to find books or music that speak to my experience. And so with the music I\u2019ve been making, it\u2019s almost like I\u2019ve wanted to make the sounds I most wanted to hear and write the songs that mean something that I don\u2019t find anywhere else.<\/p>\n